Legal Correspondent
Shimla, September 3
Taking a serious note on the issue of tampering with the official record of the Sandhu Panchayat (Shimla district), the High Court has directed the Panchayati Raj Department to hold a regular inquiry against the Panchayat Secretary, Sandhu.
The court directed that till the conclusion of such inquiry, the Panchyat Secretary, Sandhu, Theog tehsil, would remain under suspension.
A division bench comprising Justice Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Justice Satyen Vaidya passed the order on Thursday on a petition regarding renaming and bifurcation of the Sandhu Panchayat. During the course of hearing, it was brought to the notice of the court that the Panchayat Secretary had tampered with the records of Sandhu regarding its population.
While passing this order, the court observed that "the complicity of Panchayat Secretary has prima-facie been established. Since the Panchayat Secretary has prima-facie interpolated and tampered with the official records, as such, we direct the Director Panchayati Raj to lodge an FIR under appropriate provisions of the law against her within a period of one week."
The court passed this order after perusing the report filed by the Additional Director-cum-Joint Secretary (Panchayati Raj), wherein he mentioned that as far as the difference in population in two different Resolutions is concerned, Panchayat Secretary admitted that it was due to an inadvertent error as the population of the Scheduled Caste residents were added twice to the total population. However, the correct population of Sandhu was 2,417."
Courtesy: Tribune News Service
